By Claire-Marie Scott | LTVN Reporter/Anchor
After a hectic year of classes, many students take the opportunity to rest and recharge during the summer. While I understand wanting to take a break, I think students should be more open to taking summer classes. Taking summer classes helps you complete hours in a cheaper, more individualized way. Additionally, you can often take them from anywhere.
Summer classes are typically cheaper than regular semester classes, especially if you take them through a community college. At McLennan Community College, tuition for summer classes varies from $61 to $181, depending on where you’ve established residency. Conversely, summer classes at Baylor cost thousands. Regardless of where you take them though, summer classes are a cost-effective way to get classes out of the way that you don’t necessarily need to take on campus.
One attraction of summer schedules is that they are usually quite flexible. You don’t have to be in a classroom all summer if you don’t want to be. McLennan Community College and many community colleges have online lecture options. Some classes at Baylor even have online options.
This means you don’t have to put summer plans on hold to do school. You can take your computer to the beach and do assignments there. If you have to work a part-time job, you can easily schedule your obligations for the course around when you are working. The online lectures are also helpful in that they are more personalized. You can work at your own pace, which is nice, so you don’t feel like you are doing school all summer.
Additionally, if you take classes at a community college and transfer them to Baylor, the university just takes the hours as credit, not the grade. This takes away the pressure of feeling like you have to be getting the highest As during a season in which you want to rest.
Studying abroad is also an option that many students utilize during the summer. Ime yourself in a new country while getting hours toward your degree is a more exciting way to take classes. Baylor offers options to travel anywhere from New Zealand and London to Rwanda.
Class schedules for the summer don’t start directly after finals end, so there is an opportunity to take a break before jumping back into working. So, if you want an easy way to knock off some hours while still enjoying your summer, I recommend taking summer classes. Trust me, when you are ahead in hours and able to take fewer in the future, you will be thanking yourself.
